Brian McLaren is asking people to donate to support Emergent. They would like to be able to support Tony Jones in a full-time role as national facilitator or whatever.

This request illustrates the shift that is occurring for Emergent. As Emergent becomes more organized, e.g. with the naming of Tony Jones as National Director (er, coordinator), it is positioning itself to be of greater assistance to established churches.

It seems to me that Emergent’s role for the emerging church is in two primary areas:
a) Providing guidance through speaking and writing
b) Encouraging practitioners through events such as the Emergent Gathering

Emergent is increasingly under pressure to offer an official perspective on everything anyone wonders about the terribly diverse movement known as the emerging church. They are always very quick to point out that they can’t do this, but that doesn’t seem to have diminished the expectation much.

I will state in no uncertain terms that Emergent does not speak for me, though I resonate with many of their books and ideas. It seems to me that most of the leaders in Emergent have come through the seeker-sensitive route, whereas I arrived in this conversation via the simple-church paradigm. It’s great to have a public face on such a diffuse movement, but that pardox has its difficulties, too.

So, I probably won’t be giving Emergent any money directly unless I attend an event or buy a book. I’m not very clear on what Tony Jones would actually be doing for the EC, though I agree that there is plenty to be done in the way of liaising between the EC and traditional churches. Hopefully the established churches, with their tithe theology to back them up :), will foot the bill for Tony’s position. Best wishes, guys.